Sunday, 26 October 2014

A New
study is helping to rewrite Ebola's family history. The research shows that
filoviruses -- a family to which Ebola and its similarly lethal relative,
Marburg, belong -- are at least 16-23 million years old

Filoviruses
likely existed in the Miocene Epoch, and at that time, the evolutionary lines
leading to Ebola and Marburg had already diverged, the study concludes.The
research was published in the journal PeerJ in September. It adds to
scientists' developing knowledge about known filoviruses, which experts once
believed came into being some 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the rise of
agriculture. The new study pushes back the family's age to the time when great
apes arose.

"Filoviruses
are far more ancient than previously thought," says lead researcher Derek
Taylor, PhD, a University at Buffalo professor of biological sciences.
"These things have been interacting with mammals for a long time, several
million years."

According
to the PeerJ article, knowing more about Ebola and Marburg's comparative
evolution could "affect design of vaccines and programs that identify
emerging pathogens."The research does not address the age of the
modern-day Ebolavirus. Instead, it shows that Ebola and Marburg are each
members of ancient evolutionary lines, and that these two viruses last shared a
common ancestor sometime prior to 16-23 million years ago.

Clues in
'fossil genes'

Taylor
and co-author Jeremy Bruenn, UB professor of biological sciences, research
viral "fossil genes" -- chunks of genetic material that animals and
other organisms acquire from viruses during infection.In the new study, the
authors report finding remnants of filovirus-like genes in various rodents. One
fossil gene, called VP35, appeared in the same spot in the genomes of four
different rodent species: two hamsters and two voles. This meant the material
was likely acquired in or before the Miocene Epoch, prior to when these rodents
evolved into distinct species some 16-23 million years ago.In other words: It
appears that the known filovirus family is at least as old as the common
ancestor of hamsters and voles.

"These
rodents have billions of base pairs in their genomes, so the odds of a viral
gene inserting itself at the same position in different species at different
times are very small," Taylor says. "It's likely that the insertion
was present in the common ancestor of these rodents."The genetic material
in the VP35 fossil was more closely related to Ebola than to Marburg,
indicating that the lines leading to these viruses had already begun diverging
from each other in the Miocene.The new study builds on Taylor's previous work
with Bruenn and other biologists, which used viral fossil genes to estimate
that the entire family of filoviruses was more than 10 million years old.
However, those studies used fossil genes only distantly related to Ebola and
Marburg, which prevented the researchers from drawing conclusions about the age
of these two viral lines.

The
current PeerJ publication fills this viral "fossil gap," enabling the
scientists to explore Ebola's historical relationship with Marburg.

Possible
relevance to disease prevention

The first
Ebola outbreak in humans occurred in 1976, and scientists still know little
about the virus' history. The same dearth of information applies to Marburg,
which was recognized in humans in 1967 and implicated in the death of a Ugandan
health worker this month.Understanding the virus' ancient past could aid in
disease prevention, Taylor says. He notes that if a researcher were trying to
create a single vaccine effective against both Ebola and Marburg, it could be
helpful to know that their evolutionary lineages diverged so long ago.Knowing
more about filoviruses in general could provide insight into which host species
might serve as "reservoirs" that harbor undiscovered pathogens
related to Ebola and Marburg, Taylor says.

"When
they first started looking for reservoirs for Ebola, they were crashing through
the rainforest, looking at everything -- mammals, insects, other
organisms," Taylor says. "The more we know about the evolution of
filovirus-host interactions, the more we can learn about who the players might
be in the system."

2) 3-D map
of the adolescent universe:

Using
extremely faint light from galaxies 10.8-billion light years away, scientists
have created one of the most complete, three-dimensional maps of a slice of the
adolescent universe. The map shows a web of hydrogen gas that varies from low
to high density at a time when the universe was made of a fraction of the dark
matter we see today.

The new
study, led by Khee-Gan Lee and his team at the Max Planck Institute for
Astronomy in conjunction with researchers at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, will
be published in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

In
addition to providing a new map of part of the universe at a young age, says
David Schlegel of Berkeley Lab, the work demonstrates a novel technique for
high-resolution universe maps. The new technique, which uses distant galaxies
to backlight hydrogen gas, might inform future mapping projects, he says. One
such project could be the proposed Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI).
Managed by Berkeley Lab, DESI has the goal of producing the most complete map
of the universe yet."DESI was designed without the possibility of
extracting such information from the most distant, faint galaxies," says
Schlegel, "Now that we know this is possible, DESI promises to be even
more powerful."

The first
big 3D map of the universe was created using data from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS), which began in 1998. Over the years, the survey has provided
data to make a high-resolution map of the nearby universe, within about
1-billion light years. Recent telescope upgrades have stretched our ability to
map the universe to about 6-billion light years, but, according to Schlegel,
it's a fairly crude map with incomplete data in some areas. The next generation
of maps will come from the DESI project, scheduled to begin operation in 2018
pending funding. DESI will allow scientists to visualize 10 times the volume of
SDSS and will extend about 10-billion light years away.

Artist's
impression illustrating the technique of Lyman-alpha tomography: as light from
distant background galaxies (yellow arrows) travel through the Universe towards
Earth, they are imprinted by the absorption signatures from hydrogen gas
tracing in the foreground cosmic web. By observing a number of background
galaxies in a small patch of the sky, astronomers were able to create a 3D map
of the cosmic web using a technique similar to medical computer tomography (CT)
scans. Credit: Khee-Gan Lee (MPIA) and Casey Stark (UC Berkeley)Beyond
10-billion light years, says Schlegel, the expectation was that the map would
become sparse. The reason: astronomers planned to use a familiar technique that
uses the bright light of quasars, which are, unfortunately, scattered and few.
The technique uses a phenomenon called Lyman-alpha forest absorption, which
relies on the fact that vast clouds of hydrogen exist between Earth and distant
quasars and galaxies. At a certain distance, as measured by the red shift of
the light, astronomers can determine the density of hydrogen, based on the
absorption of quasar light. The problem is that this only provides information
about the presence of hydrogen along the line of sight, not over a larger
volume of space.

"It's
a pretty weird map because it's not really 3D," explains Schlegel.
"It's all these skewers; we don't have a picture of what's between the
quasars, just what's along the skewers."The researchers believe their new
technique, which uses the faint light of numerous distant galaxies instead of
that of sparse quasars, can fill in the gaps between these skewers.Before this
study, no one knew if galaxies further than 10-billion light years away could
provide enough light to be useful, Schlegel says. But earlier this year, the team
collected four hours of data on the Keck-1 telescope during a brief break in
cloudy skies. "It turned out to be enough time to prove we could do
this," Schlegel says.Of course, the galaxies' light was indeed exceedingly
faint. In order to use it for a map, the researchers needed to develop
algorithms to subtract light from the sky that would otherwise drown out the
galactic signals. Schlegel developed the algorithm to do this, while Casey
Stark and Martin White of UC Berkeley modified an existing algorithm, called a
Wiener filter, to create the 3D map within a minute on a standard laptop
computer.

Because
the project was a proof-of-concept, the researchers are planning future Keck-1
telescope time to extend the volume of space they map. "This technique is
pretty efficient and it wouldn't take a long time to obtain enough data to
cover volumes hundreds of millions of light years on a side," says
Khee-Gan Lee.This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's
Office of Science and used the facilities of the National Energy Research
Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) located at Berkeley Lab.

3)
Engineered plants demolish toxic waste:

Greenery may one day
clean up the chemical fallout of oil spills and air pollution.

Wielding the
metabolic machinery of microbes, plants can now digest polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons, the ubiquitous chemicals known as PAHs that ooze from oil spills
and settle out from smog. The vegetation is still in early stages of
development, but scientists are hopeful that it may act as green cleanup crews
in future dirty environments. Plant-based scrubbings could be around one-tenth
the cost of current methods to clean up contamination, such as harmful PAHs,
researchers say.

The United States
spends billions of dollars each year cleaning up dangerous waste sites. Global
costs are estimated to reach up to $50 billion. The expense of the work — which
often covers excavating contaminated land or pumping in chemical treatments —
often results in waste sites being deserted without any cleanup.

4)
Designer 'barrel' proteins created:

Proteins
are long linear molecules that fold up to form well-defined 3D shapes. These 3D
molecular architectures are essential for biological functions such as the
elasticity of skin, the digestion of food, and the transport of oxygen in
blood.

Despite
the wide variety of tasks that natural proteins perform, they appear to use
only a limited number of structural types, perhaps just a few thousand or so.
These are used over and over again, being altered and embellished through
evolution to generate many different functions. This raises the question: are
more protein structures possible than those used and presented to us by
nature?A team from Bristol's School of Chemistry and School of Biochemistry, headed
by Professor Dek Woolfson, have addressed this by designing humanmade protein
molecules from scratch.

Although
the design principles used are learned from natural proteins, from which the
team develops rules for assembling their proteins, some of the designed protein
shapes are completely new and have not been observed in nature yet.

Specifically,
the scientists have made proteins with central cavities, or channels, running
through them. The team believes that these will be useful in designing new protein
functions, such as catalysts for breaking down fats, or molecules that span
cell membranes to allow new communications between cells.Professor Woolfson
said: "This is a really exciting time to be exploring what can be done
with biological principles and building blocks to make new and useful
molecules, but completely outside the context of biology itself. It is one
aspect of the emerging field of synthetic biology, in which Bristol is taking a
lead both nationally and internationally."This work has been highly
collaborative combining computational modelling, peptide chemistry, biophysics
and protein X-ray crystallography across the Schools of Chemistry (Drew
Thomson, Antony Burton, Gail Bartlett and Dek Woolfson) and Biochemistry
(Richard Sessions and Leo Brady), and an South West Doctoral Training
Partnership student (Chris Wood) working between the two Schools.

5) Mystery
fossils belonged to giant ostrichlike dinosaur:

Behemoth
bones reveal a fish-eating Cretaceous creature.Almost 50 years after paleontologists
in the Mongolian desert dug up mysterious dinosaur fossils taller than most
people, scientists have now put a fish-eating face to the bones.

The
fossils probably belonged to a gigantic type of ostrichlike dinosaur, named
Deinocheirus mirificus, or “unusual horrible hand” for its massive forearms and
claws, two recently discovered skeletons suggest.Because the original fossils
were mainly just arms, no one knew exactly where to place Deinocheirus in the
dino family tree. The bones resembled those of other ostrich dinosaurs but
seemed too big: At 2.4 meters long, about the length of a full-sized sofa, the
forelimbs dwarfed known specimens. In fact, Deinocheirus’s burly bones
stretched longer than the arms of any other bipedal animal.

The new
fossils flesh out Deinocheirus’s skeleton and lifestyle, paleontologist
Yuong-Nam Lee of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources in
Daejeon and colleagues report October 22 in Nature. Deinocheirus probably was
an ostrichlike dinosaur after all, scientists conclude — just an unusually huge
one.

At about
6,000 kilograms, more than twice the weight of a Hummer H2, and taller than a
one-story building, Deinocheirus may have acted like a giant vacuum cleaner.
Some 70 million years ago, the dino probably slurped fish and flora from the
bottom of Cretaceous lakes with its ducklike bill and massive tongue

An ex-hitman
comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from
him. With New York City as his bullet-riddled playground, JOHN WICK (Keanu
Reeves) is a fresh and stylized take on the "assassin genre

Maggie
(McCarthy), a single mother, moves into a new home in Brooklyn with her 12-year
old son, Oliver (Lieberher). Forced to work long hours, she has no choice but
to leave Oliver in the care of their new neighbor, Vincent (Murray), a retired
curmudgeon with a penchant for alcohol and gambling. An odd friendship soon
blossoms between the improbable pair. Together with a pregnant stripper named
Daka (Watts), Vincent brings Oliver along on all the stops that make up his
daily routine - the race track, a strip club, and the local dive bar. Vincent
helps Oliver grow to become a man, while Oliver begins to see in Vincent
something that no one else is able to: a misunderstood man with a good heart.

For five
friends, it was a chance for a summer getaway— a weekend of camping in the
Texas Big Thicket. But visions of a carefree vacation are shattered with an
accident on a dark and desolate country road. In the wake of the accident, a
bloodcurdling force of nature is unleashed—something not exactly human, but not
completely animal— an urban legend come to terrifying life…and seeking
murderous revenge.

Sam is a
killer by trade, a former assassin who was part of a group known as the Shadow
Syndicate, whose business is death. But when Sam falls in love with a beautiful
Thai girl (Mali), he tries to leave his former life. They flee to the hills of
Thailand where Sam tries to live a normal life with his wife and newborn son
(Shiro), but the Syndicate finds him and threatens his family. After a violent
confrontation, Sam realizes he can't run from his past, but can only live to
protect his son. He forges a mystical blade before embarking on a journey
across the globe to exact vengeance on them all.

When
atrocities are committed in countries held hostage by ruthless dictators, Human
Rights Watch sends in the E-Team (Emergencies Team), a collection of fiercely
intelligent individuals hired to document war crimes and report them to the
rest of the world. Within this volatile climate, filmmakers Ross Kauffman and
Katy Chevigny take us to the frontline in Syria and Libya, where shrapnel,
bullet holes, and unmarked graves provide mounting evidence of coordinated
attacks conducted by Bashar al-Assad and the now-deceased Muammar Gaddafi. The
crimes are rampant, random, and often undocumented, making E-Team's effort to
get information out of the country and into the hands of media outlets and
criminal courts all the more necessary.

Political
News This Week:

1) 'Uddhav
keen on coalition govt with BJP':

Republican
Party of India chief Ramdas Athawale on Friday claimed that Shiv Sena President
Uddhav Thackeray was "very keen" on coalition with its estranged ally
Bharatiya Janata Party for formation of a government in Maharashtra.

"Uddhav
Thackeray told me that he is very keen on forming the next government in
alliance with the BJP...Details of how the portfolios will be shared will be
revealed once the talks take place in the next two days. But there is no doubt
about the alliance of both parties now. Uddhav is completely ready to support
the BJP," Athawale told PTI after meeting the Sena chief in Mumbai on
Friday afternoon. The RPI is a part of BJP-led alliance in Maharashtra which
fought the assembly elections. Before it parted ways, Sena too was a part of
this alliance.

Asked if
Thackeray will attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Diwali dinner for National
Democratic Alliance allies on October 26, Athawale said, "It does not
really matter whether Uddhav attends the dinner or not. (Union minister) Anant Geete
and other Sena MPs will attend."Athawale also claimed that the tension
between the two saffron allies during the campaigning -- when the Shiv Sena had
launched a sharp attack on the BJP -- was now a thing of the past, and the
relations would be normal soon.

The BJP
has emerged as the single largest party in the just-concluded state elections,
but does not have majority. While it won 122 seats of the 288-member house,
Sena won 63.

2) Major
airports on high alert after threat of terror attack on flight:

A threat
of a bomb explosion or a possible suicide attack on an Air India flight from
Mumbai sparked an alert with authorities beefing up security at major airports
across the country. A high alert has been sounded in the Mumbai, Kochi and
Ahmedabad airports.

Airport
Director A K C Nair told PTI that they received information from Kolkata that
there is a threat to the AI flight on the Mumbai-Kochi sector on October 25 and
Ahmedabad-Mumbai sector on Friday night.

"There
was a threat of bomb attack or bomb suicide attack," he said.A high-level
meeting was convened this morning by Central Industrial Security Force Deputy
Inspector General Anand Mohan, who arrived in Kochi from Chennai, to review the
security at the airport.The Director of Airports Authority of India, Kolkata,
had received an anonymous call on Thursday night stating that AI flights on the
Ahmedabad-Mumbai and Mumbai-Kochi sector will be 'sabotaged', airport sources
said.

The
information had been handed over to police and Bureau of Civil Aviation
Security and as per their directions security has been tightened at the
airport, the sources said.A Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, Quick Response
team, CISF and police are keeping a constant vigil at the airports. Security at
the Kochi airport perimeter entrance has also been further tightened.

3) Cong
won't be embarrassed if any ex-minister on black money list':

Senior
Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday dismissed Finance Minister Arun
Jaitleys' remarks that disclosure of the names of black money account holders
can embarrass Congress amid speculation that the list could include a former
United Progressive Alliance minister. "These are individual
transgressions, individual violations of law. Individual should be embarrassed.
Why should the party be embarrassed? …If there is the name of any minister, it
will embarrass him. Why should it embarrass the party? He is not keeping the
account of the party. The party did not authorise him to keep that
account," he said.

Chidambaram
alleged that the government's affidavit in the Supreme Court arguing that it
cannot disclose the names was "clearly a U-turn" of the Bharatiya
Janata Party's earlier position on the issue as it had criticised the UPA
government on the same position.Talking about the party leadership, Chidambaram
said that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi should
"speak more" and put in action a timetable that would enable the
party to play the role of a "true opposition" at a time when the morale
of party cadres is "pretty low". He also said that the reorganisation
of the party was due for the larger task of being an "efffective, strong
and robust opposition" to the government.Chidambaram said that Congress
President Sonia Gandhi was "numero uno" in the organisation and that
the decision in Jaipur in January 2013 to make Rahul Gandhi the vice president
was "perhaps the correct decision". Steering clear of questions about
clamour within a section of the party for Priyanka Gandhi, he urged the
Congress president and the vice president "to speak more. I would urge
them to address more rallies, urge them to meet the media..." "I
agree that the Congress (cadres') morale is pretty low. But I don't agree that
the morale cannot be lifted. Direction cannot be given...I am sure the Congress
leadership has a timetable.”"I would urge again that timetable be
shortened and we get on with the job of a reorganising the party and getting on
with the job of being true opposition," he told NDTV, replying to a
question about doubts being expressed about Rahul Gandhi's leadership.

Asked can
a non-Gandhi become the Congress President, he said, "I think so. Someday
yes", but was quick to add, "I do not know" when asked about the
timeline for such an eventuality.”"I am too old to aspire for anything
now," he, at the same time, said. His remarks have come at a time when the
process of organisational elections has been set in motion, which will
culminate into the election of the new party chief by July end next year. Sonia
Gandhi is the longest serving party chief being at the helm since March 1998.To
a question as to why the party was over-dependent on one family to lead it, he
said, "It so happens that he (Rahul Gandhi) belongs to that family but
that does not mean other younger leaders cannot emerge. After all Sachin Pilot
has emerged."

The
former finance minister dismissed suggestions that the party leadership was not
talking even to party workers. "That is not right. I do see them at
regular intervals. They do talk to me and I assume that there are others. I
would urge them to talk to the public," Chidambaram said when asked about
a perception that Congress has become a rudderless ship as Sonia and Rahul are
seen or heard very rarely.

His
remarks are significant as there has been criticism that lack of communication
was one of the reasons for the party's debacle in Lok Sabha elections.Asked
whether he was disappointed by the fact that Sonia has ceded the space and left
it to her son, he said, "The question must be put to her. But I think the
creation of the post of a vice president and installing Rahul Gandhi to that
post was a deliberate strategy to handover the baton to next generation of
leadership."This, he said, was happening at every level. "I don't
think there is anything wrong with that. I think the decision in Jaipur was
perhaps the correct decision welcomed with great enthusiasm not only in the
party but even from people outside the party."On the issue of leadership,
he said, "The most acceptable leader of the party of my generation is
Sonia Gandhi and I think among the younger members of the party, there is wide
acceptance of Rahul Gandhi. That does not mean other leaders cannot or should
not emerge."

4) India
can celebrate Diwali because of you: Modi tells jawans at Siachen:

Prime
Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid a surprise visit to Siachen to
celebrate Diwali with soldiers posted at the world's highest battlefield and
hailed the role of the armed forces in securing the country. Before reaching Srinagar,
he went to Siachen early in the morning and spent more than an hour with the
soldiers at a base camp situated at a height of over 12,000 feet.

He
praised their valour and courage, saying that 125 crore Indians could celebrate
Diwali today, and go about their lives in comfort, because the jawans stood
guard at the borders, prepared to make every sacrifice for the nation From the
icy heights, he also extended Diwali greetings to President Pranab Mukherjee.

Modi told
the jawans that he had come unannounced, and they may be surprised, but one
does not need to announce arrival when coming to one's own family."I have
specially come on the occasion of Diwali to be with you. I am aware how it
feels like to spend Diwali with your family. The happiness is different, but
you are so involved in the devotion of your motherland that family is spending
Diwali somewhere else and you are somewhere else guarding the motherland,"
he said.

"My
coming to this place will not fill the void of your family members, but as a
representative of 125 crore people... after being with you I feel proud and
satisfied," Modi told the jawans.

5)
Canadian parliament rocked by gunshots; 2 killed:

Canada's
Parliament came under attack on Wednesday with a barrage of gunshots fired both
inside and outside the building as a soldier was killed in the assault and a
man with a rifle was gunned down by security forces.

Parliament
Hill came under attack when a man with a rifle shot a soldier standing guard at
the National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa, before seizing a car and driving
to the doors of building's Centre Block nearby. The injured soldier later
succumbed to his wounds."Condolences to family of the soldier killed and
prayers for the parliamentary guard wounded. Canada will not be terrorised or
intimidated," Employment Minister Jason Kenney said on Twitter.Heavily
armed officers backed by armored vehicles sealed off the Parliament building.

"One
shooting victim succumbed to injuries. He was a member of the Canadian forces.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones," the Ottawa Police and
Royal Canadian Mounted Police said."One male suspect has also been
confirmed as deceased," they said.The motive of the attack was not known
but it came two days after a recent convert to Islam killed one Canadian
soldier and injured another in a hit-and-run before being shot to death by
police. Ottawa police confirmed shots were fired in three locations: the war
memorial, inside Centre Block of the Parliament and at the Rideau Centre.

Police
said an investigation was continuing and did not confirm earlier reports that
more gunmen were involved. In a chaotic scene, witnesses said a sustained
volley of shots was fired as startled security personnel and political staff
scrambled to take cover in the limestone alcoves with bullets flying past.
Alain Merisier, who works at the cafeteria in one of the Parliament Buildings,
said he saw a man in a car at the Centre Block with a long gun.There were
unconfirmed reports that a person was injured outside the Library of the
Parliament.

"We
were waiting there for a city tour and suddenly I heard four shots," said
Jan Luchtenburg, a tourist visiting Ottawa from Holland."Suddenly I saw a
small guy with long black hair... with a long rifle, and he ran away after the
shots, across streets in the direction of Parliament Hill," he said.

6) 2
Maharashtra youths on way to Afghanistan for terror training held: Police:

A
suspected SIMI operative and an aide of Indian Mujahideen media in-charge have
been arrested from Secunderabad, with police saying that they were allegedly
planning to go to Afghanistan to get training from Al Qaeda for carrying out
terror activities in India.Police also claimed to have seized literature on
explosives formula, a 16 GB pen drive containing literature in terror
activities among other things from the Maharashtra youths.One of them was
identified as Shah Mudassir alias Talha, who runs a general store at Umerkhed
and is a member of SIMI, police claimed.

Even
after ban on the organisation in 2001, Talha became a member of the Association
of Indian Minority Students which is a front organisation of Students Islamic
Movement of India.The other youth is identified as Shoeb Ahmed Khan alias Tariq
Bhai of Hingoli district and is an associate of Mansoor Ali Peerboy (Media
in-charge of Indian Mujahideen, Pune Module), police said.

"He
(Tariq) is also a close friend of Mudassir," police said.Mudassir and
Shoeb came to Hyderabad and got down in Secunderabad. As their movements were
suspicious, they were taken into custody.A case is registered with Gopalapuram
police station under relevant sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act
and IT Act. "They have been arrested and sent in judicial custody,"
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North Zone) R Jaya Lakshmi said.

When
asked about Billah and two other citizens from Hyderabad, the DCP told PTI:
"I can only say they are not in our custody. The investigations are still
going on.""Both these persons are adept in using social networks in
propagating Jihad and both of them are having several Facebook accounts,"
the DCP said in a release on Wednesday night.

During
Facebook chats they came in contact with Abu Saif and Kamaran Sha, both of
Pakistan, Zahid Al Hindi, a native of Afghanistan, and Mir Showkath, Sameer
Khan and Mothasim Billah-- all residents of Saidabad area here, the DCP said.

Billah is
a former SIMI member and son of Islahi, a Hyderabad-based Islamic
scholar."During Facebook chats, Zahid Al Hindi and Mothasim Billah used to
motivate them frequently. Once Kamaran Sha of Pakistan shared literature
through Facebook on explosives wherein three methods of explosive manufacturing
from the locally and easily available chemicals were narrated," the
officer said.Through the literature Kamaran Sha motivated Mudassir and Shoeb to
manufacture bombs and carry out blasts in Maharashtra and told them that he
will "feel happy to see the news of triggering bomb blasts in India,"
according to police.

Billah,
who came in contact with Mudassir and Shoeb through Facebook, asked them to
visit Hyderabad. Accordingly, the duo visited Hyderabad on September 3 and met
him.Billah motivated them to go to Afghanistan to get training from Al Qaeda in
order to wage Jihad in India to establish Islamic state, the DCP
said."Billah even expressed that he will extended financial support for
VISA processing and asked Mudassir and Shoeb to come after October 10,"
the senior police officer said.

Accordingly,
Mudassir and Shoeb visited Hyderabad in order to meet Billah and to take
guidance from him in getting VISA and on external contacts.As per the request
of Billah, Mudassir and Shoeb brought literature on explosives as well about
the SIMI.The explosive literature was coded as "Hyderabadi Biryani",
the DCP said, adding that they also brought a cover page for a book "Jihad
Kya Hai' authored by Billah's father Islahi.

Atletico
de Kolkata is all set to consolidate their position at the top of the table
when they take on hosts FC Goa in their fourth Hero Indian Super League
encounter at the Fatorda Stadium on Thursday.It will be an ideal Diwali gift
for the growing number of Atletico fans, who would want their team to again
display attacking brand of football against Robert Pires and co.Atletico has
seven points from three games courtesy their twin victories against Mumbai City
FC and NorthEast United FC and a draw against Delhi Dynamos.It will be their
second away match in the cash-rich league and the team will miss their
inspiration skipper Luis Garcia. In all likelihood, it will be his compatriot
Jofre Mateu Gonzalez, who will be in the starting XI.

Coach
Antonio Habas is also planning to start with East Bengal medio Cavin Lobo in
place of Rakesh Masih, who got the marching orders during the last match for
his stud show while trying to tackle Alessandro del Piero.

The good
news for Atletico is that Borja Fernandes, who scored with a stunning volley in
the ISL opener, will be back after having served his one-match sentence due to
double yellow against NorthEast United.For Atletico, their go-to man will be
Ethiopian striker Fikru Teferra Lemessa, who has already earned a sizeable fan
following with his goal poaching abilitiesFor Goa, a lot will depend on how
Ranti Martins fares upfront. Someone, who is among the all-time top scorers
list in the I-League, one expects a better show from the Nigerian frontman.It
will be too much to expect from Pires to turn the clock back to his days at
Highbury but a bit of inspiration won't be too bad for the likes of Afghanistan
captain Fakhruddin Amiri, young India U-23 players like Narayan Das, Prannoy
Halder not to forget the old guards like Clifford Miranda."We are working
very hard trying out various plans during training and are desperate.

"We
are working very hard trying out various plans during training and are
desperate to break the unbeaten run of the visitors," FC Goa manager Zico
said on the eve of the match.On the assessment of his boys' performance in the
first two games, Zico said,"The boys played well in both the matches and
also created chances but were not able to score.

"Hope
they don't miss those chances tomorrow against Atletico, who are very good in
defence as well as attack. We can't always depend on defenders to score for us
in every game," Zico stated referring two goals scored in two matches by
defender Gregory.Zico downplayed Garcia's possible absence in tomorrow's
game."We are still playing against their 11 players! If they were playing
with a 10-member team, then it is an advantage! He (Garcia) is avery good
player and it is a loss for the Kolkata team that he is injured," the Brazilian
legend said.Looking for their elusive win, 'White Pele' further added,"A
win is very important and even for the tournament. We need to win the games on
home ground since we lost the first match in Goa. A win against the Atletico,
who are unbeaten so far, will increase our confidence and balance everything
out."Zico also defended his decision to play Andre Santos as an attacking
midfielder, he reasoned:" Santos was always a forward and a very offensive
player. He knows how to play in that position and because of that I used him in
that position."Zico also downplayed the rivalry issue between traditional
teams from Goa and Kolkata stating that superiority is decided on the
pitch."Its football and we don't need to be worried of rivalry and things
like that. Who is superior, can be witnessed on the pitch. Challenges like this
are always a motivation for the players. A lot of the foreign players don't
know about this rivalry. But in this league, everyone is a rival."

2) Murray
improves London chances with Valencia win:

Andy Murray collected more points to aid his
World Tour finals qualification bid when he fought back from a set down to beat
Kevin Anderson 6-7(3) 6-4 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the Valencia Open on
Friday.

A wild
card at the Spanish indoor hard court event, which he won in 2009, Murray is
eighth in the race to secure a berth at the season-ending tournament in
London.The Scot will play top-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer, who is also eyeing
a place at the Tour finals, on Saturday for a place in Sunday's showpiece.

Murray is
attempting to qualify for the Tour finals for a seventh consecutive year and
won the Vienna title last week when he came from a set down to beat Ferrer in
the final.

3)
Wozniacki never lacked self-belief against the best:

Caroline
Wozniacki arrived in Singapore as the eighth and bottom seed for the WTA
Finals, but the Dane never doubted her ability to compete against the very best
and goes into Saturday's semi-finals with a spotless record after round robin
play.

Wozniacki
opened her tournament with a three-set win over Maria Sharapova and after
brushing aside Agnieszka Radwanksa, she ensured she finished top of the White
Group with a 6-2 6-3 victory over Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova on Friday.

"I
believe in myself and I believe in my skills. I've been playing well, so I
believed I could beat anyone," the 24-year-old Dane told reporters after
she set up a last-four encounter against world number one Serena
Williams."I obviously also knew that if I wasn't playing up to my best I
could lose to all of them."So I'm really pleased about the way this week
has gone so far. I played really well. Today was a really great match for
me."Wozniacki has enjoyed a resurgence in form in the second half of the
season following poor displays in the first two grand slams, reaching the
fourth round of Wimbledon and her second U.S. Open final last month, which she
lost to Williams.

She won
the Istanbul Cup in July and reached the final of Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo
last month to all but confirm her place in the elite eight-woman WTA Finals
being held in Singapore for the first time.

4)
Williams reaps benefits as her rivals slip up:

With a
little help from her rivals, Serena Williams secured a place in the last four
of the WTA Finals on Friday and clinched the year-end number one ranking for
the fourth time in her illustrious career.

The
American was not involved in Friday's final group matches but still emerged as
the big winner after Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic both bowed out of the
tournament despite winning their final matches.

Sharapova,
who needed to go on and win the season-ending event to overtake Williams at the
top of the rankings, had to beat Poland's Agnieska Radwanska in straight sets
to reach the semis but blew her chance after a second set meltdown.

She
squandered three match points and a 5-2 lead to lose the second set in a
tiebreak, and although the Russian recovered to win the match 7-5 6-7(4) 6-2,
she failed to make it out of the round-robin stage of the elite eight-woman
event.

"It
would've been very easy for me to get down on myself. I had so many chances
being up, having match point, and just saying you know what? I've lost two
matches," said Sharapova. "(It would have been) so easy to just let
it go but I didn't. "I got the job done. I know I'm not moving forward,
but I'm proud of that effort and to finish the year off on this way."

Williams,
who won two of her three group matches, faced another anxious wait before
knowing whether she would play on the weekend.

Ivanovic
had the chance to leapfrog her in the group standings, but the Serbian needed
to beat Simona Halep in straight sets.

After
coming from 5-2 behind to win the first set in dramatic fashion, Ivanovic had
all the momentum but she was unable to finish off Halep in the second, and had
to settle for a 7-6(7) 3-6 6-3 consolation victory."It's mixed emotions,
obviously," said Ivanovic. "I feel like it was such a great match,
yet it's such a low not to be able to qualify for the
semi-finals."Williams will now play her good friend Caroline Wozniacki in
the semis, in a rematch of last month's U.S. Open final, after the Dane romped
to a 6-2 6-3 win over Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.

Book Of
This Week:

Becoming
Marie Antoinette: by Juliet Grey

This
enthralling confection of a novel, the first in a new trilogy, follows the
transformation of a coddled Austrian archduchess into the reckless, powerful, beautiful
queen Marie Antoinette. "Why must it be me?" I wondered. "When I
am so clearly inadequate to my destiny?"

Raised
alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of
Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one
day be sacrificed to her mother's political ambitions. What she never
anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon. Before she can
journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour,
and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change "everything" about
herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the wife of the
awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her
for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen. Filled with smart
history, treacherous rivalries, lavish clothes, and sparkling jewels,
"Becoming Marie Antoinette" will utterly captivate fiction and
history lovers alike.

Writer :
Juliet Grey

New York,
The United States

genderfemale

websitehttp://www.becomingmarie.com

genreHistorical
Fiction

member
sinceFebruary 2011

About
this author edit data

Juliet
Grey has extensively researched European royal history and is a particular
devotee of Marie Antoinette. She and her husband divide their time between New
York City and Washington DC.